Monday, March 09, 2009

Christine Did Dallas

Actually, it was a great break, in the midst of some horrible moments.

The zoo brought us up-close experiences of mating monkeys and an elephant taking the biggest whiz in the history of elephant whizzes. Very educational.

Had some very good discussions over negative behaviors. The most popular across the board was how children want to punish their parents for dishing out consequences or correcting them. Yet, parents who are well-prepared and full of crazy love will make sure it is impossible for you to punish them; instead punishing yourself more. A vote was taken, and my children agree they would like parents with less intelligence.

One child and I have been working through understanding cause-and-effect thinking. I threw out a few scenarios. We worked through the various outcomes based on making a choice in the middle of very big feelings. This kid wants the good outcomes, but struggles with their tried and true habit of acting on impulses immediately. They have worked their emotional butt off for the past two days. Every few hours we discuss the times they have WANTED to act differently and how they actually stopped and thought it through.

Today I reminded them how you cannot live like this for this many years and just change it all overnight. It will take lots and lots and lots of practice. They will mess up again. Yet, at the same time, they can keep moving forward. You could see it in their eyes. They want that to change. Yet, behaving based on feelings is all they've ever known. Working on the behaviors while still having the feelings - tough!

5 comments:

Hey! Okay, I really must plan a trip to Oklahoma. Eli is STILL talking about Mac. He's in loooove. He's going to "marry her and we can play T-Rex together and I'll chase her around and she'll run from me and her hair will blow back." ROFL - he's a hoot, isn't he?

crap i write about

years of drivel

"My story is important not because it is mine, God knows, but because if I tell it anything like right, the chances are you will recognize that in many ways it is also yours.
Maybe nothing is more important than that we keep track, you and I,of these stories of who we are and where we have come from and the people we have met along the way because it is precisely through these stories, in all their particularity, as I have long believed and often said, that God makes himself known to each of us most powerfully and personally."